The Vision Architect

[Jul 29] 212: Marc Emmer: Strategic Planning That Actually Drives Execution | #212
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[00:00:24] Simon Vetter: Welcome to another session of The Vision Architect. I look forward to having a conversation today with Mark Emmer. He's an expert on strategy and strategic planning. He has facilitated over 230, facilitation processes with companies. He's also a speaker for Vistage and many organizations. Has written two books.

One is called How Companies Decide What to Do Next, and Intended Consequences: Design the Future You Wish to Create. Mark, welcome to the episode. I'm happy to have you.

[00:01:03] Marc Emmer: Thank you, Simon. Good morning. Greetings from Los Angeles, and I hope all of our, viewers are having a great morning wherever they may be

[00:01:11] Simon Vetter: Excellent. Excellent. So a lot of companies do planning. Some use strategic processes, others use forecasting, budgeting. Can you help understand the work you do with the whole strategic planning process? What does it entail?

[00:01:30] Marc Emmer: Sure. Well, we focus on working with mid-market companies. And, you know, I think of strategy really as a prioritization exercise, 'cause most companies could do anything, but they can't do everything. So it's really about, focusing your resources on the markets where you think you can win, and also kind of balancing an understanding of the external market dynamics and the internal capability building so you can match your capabilities with the market opportunities you want to exploit

[00:02:01] Simon Vetter: Yeah. You work with a lot of CEOs on, on the strategy. What do companies miss when it comes to strategic planning, and what is a reason that kind of makes the whole process fail?

[00:02:15] Marc Emmer: It's a great question. I think strategy goes badly when the CEO, you know, sim- summons his or her team to some strategy offsite and there's little or no preparation in advance. Sometimes people haven't seen an agenda they show up in a meeting and, you know, they have great conversations about where they're trying to go, but they don't leave with anything real actionable, and then they go out that night and s- drink too much expensive red wine and bourbon, and the following morning there's a lot of re- regret.

not just 'cause of the bourbon, but because nobody knows what decisions they made. So I think the failure is a lack of preparation in advance and a lack of follow through after

[00:02:58] Simon Vetter: Yeah. So it's a, a whole process from beginning to end. Who needs to be at the table for strategy sessions?

[00:03:06] Marc Emmer: the group dynamics are such that I think the, ideal number is maybe eight to 12 people. you know, it's not three and it's not 30. but I would also say there's two criteria that we always use. It's who are the people you trust and who are the people who can think strategically, right?

So I think that what a, what a lot of CEOs will do, they'll say, "Well, you know, Johnny's a director of X and Jane's a director of Y, so if I bring Johnny, I have to bring Jane." And I don't, I don't get caught up in all of that. So I think you invite the people y- that you think can make an impact in the meeting, in the, in the process

[00:03:43] Simon Vetter: So the two factors is the CEO has to trust them, there's a level of connection and unification, but also they need to be able to think strategically. Sometimes when leadership teams are not, on the same page, how do you help them come together to really support each other, listen to each other, challenge each other in an effective way?

Because I think sometimes I, I feel like that is a, a foundation for good strategy discussions

[00:04:12] Marc Emmer: And I'd say more problematic since the pandemic, right? Because what's happened now is we have more distributed workforces and like in the employee engagement surveys that we often do, a common problem that almost every company has is we ask this question, you know, is there good communication, you know, across, departments?

And the answer's always no.

[00:04:32] Simon Vetter: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:32] Marc Emmer: You know, so really being thoughtful about it's not only how you meet, but it's how you communicate, right? And what information is shared and how do you share it. Like, so for example, before the pandemic, everyone was using email, now we're using work threads and, you know, if you're not using threads to communicate, then people don't feel like they're in the know, you know?

So I think you have to really be intentional about having, not only setting, you know, your goals and objectives and having that cascade down and throughout the organization, but also having like a corporate communications function where you're... You know, it's not good enough just to have like a town hall meeting every quarter.

You know, you have to be much more thoughtful about making sure people are engaged in a weekly basis about the information that will impact their work.

[00:05:20] Simon Vetter: Hmm. So strategy is about, winning in the marketplace, create a position, market position, and also create a competitive advantage. What do you see are some ways for companies to, to create that unique market position, that, that edge in the market?

[00:05:37] Marc Emmer: Well, it always starts with data, right? I mean, you have to be studying your market. So I think unfortunately, a lot of small and medium-sized companies, you know, their, strategy looks like a, a nine-year-old soccer game. You know what I mean? Just kinda running to the ball, and they're taking care of today's work and not really taking the time to do thorough market studies and do the, you know, addressable market studies, and diving into their competition and understanding where they're going, and really being thoughtful about carving out, a niche.

you know, I do a lot of public speaking, and one thing that I always focus on with small and medium-sized businesses, or I- we could just call it private businesses, is they really should not be so romanced by going after the largest addressable market. there's that old saying that there's riches in the niches.

So I think for private companies, it's very often finding a niche that's underserved that won't attract so much public competition, and doubling down there as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody

[00:06:43] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Be very clear about who is your ideal client and how you best serve them. Yeah

[00:06:49] Marc Emmer: And I would say typically sales and marketing teams define that too broadly

[00:06:54] Simon Vetter: Can you give an example?

[00:06:55] Marc Emmer: Well, you know, if I go into a new client prospect and, you know, the CEOs always tell me, "Oh, I think my team's clear about who the prospects are," and I pull the kimono back and I'll ask, "Well, who's your customer target?" "We're in real estate." "What kind of real estate?" "Commercial real estate." Still too, still too broad, you know?

There's like 10 asset classes within commercial real estate. You know, so I'm wanting to know which one of those niches can you achieve and sustain market leadership, and that's usually narrowing the focus as opposed to being so expansive

[00:07:28] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Makes sense. You said you do a lot of offsites. What is the preparation before and what is the process afterwards to make sure there is accountability and decisions are implemented?

[00:07:42] Marc Emmer: well, I'll tell you how we do it, but I would also say,I think every company needs to find their own strategic planning process and cycle and rhythm, and, and it really depends on your culture and your leadership team and the industry you're in, and size of your management, team. There's, you know, a lot of variables there.

But as a best practice, so typically when we engage with a client, we might spend six or seven weeks preparing for a strategy off-site. you know, I'll interview the management team, and then we'll work usually in working groups. We usually have three or four working groups that are focusing on things like doing the market studies and the business development, and understanding the capability that a company might need to build out.

Capability might be, a technology, it might be expanding their c- capacity in their manufacturing facility, it might be automation. it could be lots of things. You know, and then there's usually some dive into culture and, and human capital. Sometimes we launch an employee engagement surveys, as I mentioned, just to get voice of the employee.

Maybe you're doing a voice of the customer study. I mean, there's a lot of data inputs, that you could seek out. and what we're trying to do, you know, before a strategy meeting is prepare the leadership team to even have a strategy conversation that's based on data so that they can make informed decisions.

So I really think you have to, you know, set your pre-work in a very, very thoughtful way. And, you know, I would say CEOs are always quite concerned that they might overwhelm their team with preparation, but, that's because they're, you know, busy chasing the soccer ball. So, you know, I, I think that, you have to be mindful of that but also make the investment.

and then the other part of your question was after the strategy session. After a strategy session, that's when we, we want to, you know, publicize internally the strategy, and of course in a way that, meets whatever your level of confidentiality is, but, in some way communicate out to the business what our intentions are, and then cascade goals down, down and throughout.

And then after that is when you can be doing your, budgeting and your KPIs and your performance management and your incentive plan. So I think it's really critical, like my message to the world is, is that you think about strategy like it's a cycle and not an event. So your strategy's not a meeting, it's a series of activities that a management team facilitates during the course of a year, and they treat it like an annual cycle.

And when you do that, it's like compound interest. You know, you build a better business this year, and next year you build on what you did this year

[00:10:22] Simon Vetter: What is a typical follow-up? How often and in what cadence?

[00:10:28] Marc Emmer: Well, when we do it, it might be three times a year, like more like a quarterly cadence, sometimes a monthly cadence. But I think regardless if a company if, is, self-facilitating themselves or they're using a consultant, you need to create a rhythm to it. Because honestly, the biggest barrier to strategy is not information or even having the right people, it's, - fighting the mediocrity that is created by everyone being so distracted by their day-to-day work that they use time as this silly rationalization that they can't, they, you know, they don't have time for strategy.

I, sometimes I, I like to draw this circle and, reflect on this Stephen Covey-ism. He used to say, "Imagine there was a circle and, you know, part of the time you're spend planning and part of the time you spend reacting. the proportion of time that you spend planning will, really inform on how successful a company you are.

And, the greater the proportion planning, the smaller the circle." In other words, we waste our time when we're reacting. That's when we have our defects and our safety events, and we don't take care of our, our customers and our employees. So if you were a, say a, you know, a $50 million company with 100 employees, and you have eight, maybe eight managers involved in a strategy process.

So imagine that you ask your managers to spend 200 hours collectively during the year doing that stuff. That 100 employees, that 100-employee company, if their employees work 2,000 hours a year, that's 200,000 labor hours. So should you spend 200 hours a year as a management team figuring out how you're gonna deploy your 200,000 labor hours?

And when I draw the circle, people just feel inadequate and silly because they realize how little planning they're-

[00:12:20] Simon Vetter: Yeah. Yeah. I often ask, executives, "How much time do you spend a week on strategy?" And most people spend maybe one or two or three hours which is not a lot. To your point, we have a lot of items to cover, but we are not really strategic. And as a CEO, that's what you're paid to do, set the strategy for the organization.

[00:12:43] Marc Emmer: I would be happy with one or two, three hours a week being thoughtful, being in deep thought, not even doing strategy. But, you know, I think most executives don't even plan the following week. They, they kinda show up Monday morning and they get in their inbox, and then they're just reacting all week long.

So I think the best executives, you know, are much more thoughtful about, the, not only the long range strategy, but having their one-to-ones with their managers, delegating, and managing their own work and their own time, which is, you know, part art and part science

[00:13:17] Simon Vetter: You thought about, you said about deep thought. And in our busy world, we get distracted. There's so much going on, which doesn't allow us to have deep thought. What ideas do you have to, like, busy executives to protect that time, and then how do you advise them to use that time for deep thought?

[00:13:39] Marc Emmer: I'm thinking of the documentary with Bill Gates where they show him, you know, off on some island with like 11 books and just taking a whole weekend. But I think, you know, a lot of us are, you know, we have families and kids, and that might not be so easy. But I think it is carving out time, for yourself. and ... When people say, "Well, I'm just not even getting through my, my work on a d- a weekly basis," you know, I tell them, "Well, what you should do is maybe you have two or three hours a week that are your time, that you're gonna dive into your projects or do whatever thinking you need to do, and you close the door and you put a sign on it, and you, turn the phone off, and you shut the email down, and you announce to your team that, When I'm in hibernation mode, I'm not to be bothered unless something is burning.'" And just find two or three hours like that a week and you will be very productive. when, when I was working in a, larger companies in a more of a corporate environment, I always made sure I was first in the office, and I just had that one hour in the morning.

I, I just needed one hour, to have for myself. and that's something that just has made me a much more productive person

[00:14:51] Simon Vetter: Yeah. What do you advise a, a CEO if he only has a couple hours in a quarter? How would you advise this person to use time for strategy?

[00:15:01] Marc Emmer: W- well, I would say, you know, strategy looks very different if you have 10 employees than if you have 100 or 1,000, right? So I think your question is geared more towards the maybe entrepreneur with 10 employees, and they don't have a director of this and a VP of that. and for them, it's just finding space and time every month or every quarter for things where you'll get no ROI for two or three years, you know?

And forcing your team to have those meetings, those discussions. It's a side project , that you keep separate from everything else that you're doing, and you're willing, to make those investments. But honestly, I, I think if you have 100 employees or 1,000 employees, there's no rational reason not to be able to spend more time than that.

I think it's the smaller companies that feel like they have no time at all because usually the entrepreneur's wearing five hats

[00:15:53] Simon Vetter: Yeah. You work with companies have different ownership models. You work with privately held, PE companies. - what is the difference between private equity or privately held companies? do you see there is a, a major difference when it comes to, the planning of strategy?

[00:16:11] Marc Emmer: Well, you know, I would say a lot of, private business owners have become fairly skeptical of private equity. And, you know, and for good reason, right? however, I also have some clients who've sold to private equity - recently, and, you know, both the economics and from a cultural standpoint, things have really worked out very, very well.

So I wouldn't, you know, draw a conclusion that because, say, you sell to a private equity firm that your, you know, life is gonna become hell, because, clearly there's times where that makes a lot of sense for the buyer and for the seller. but with private equity firms, you know, they tend to wanna be the smartest guys in the room, smartest people in the room, and you have to include them in any strategy process.

But the other thing that I think is probably most material is almost always you now have debt on your balance sheet that you have to manage, which ironically can dwarf your ability to, limit your ability to, grow and invest. So I think going in eyes wide open and understanding, where your investment with a private equity firm changes your market position and maybe provides the opportunity to, perform within a platform, or may- maybe you have access to more resources or sister companies that might be synergistic in some way, that's all helpful.

And then also understanding whatever limitations will be created for you, is really important.

[00:17:35] Simon Vetter: Mm-hmm. Yeah Today there's so much uncertainty, there's so much ambiguity. How do you make sure you, set a strategy that is clear and doesn't always meander and, and respond to every little, change in the market? What's your, perspective on that?

[00:17:53] Marc Emmer: Well, I said earlier that people will use time as an excuse not to do strategy. Excuse number two is the world is too chaotic. of course, the world is chaotic. It has always been chaotic. it has always been uncertain, and maybe it feels more uncertain today because of all the political winds and whatever.

But, I would suggest that, we need to be thinking about what's gonna change around the bend all the time. So that is an argument for doing planning more often, not doing less. so I think the answer to the question is, is you have to be agile. You know, I think it's, it's a fool's errand to think you could create a strategy, and people used to use language like, "We've created our five-year strategic plan." everybody knows the minute you walk out of a strategy session, you'll have a collision with reality. You know, as Mike Tyson said, "You'll get punched in the face." but that just means we have to be agile enough that we can adapt our strategy based on the changing market conditions. So for example, one thing we always recommend is in your strategy deck or your output or whatever, have a list of assumptions that you used.

We used these assumptions, we came up with this strategy, and then when the assumptions change, then you change the strategy as well

[00:19:10] Simon Vetter: What's a good planning horizon strategy? If three years to one year, what's your take on what's, a good duration to set a strategy for?

[00:19:22] Marc Emmer: I don't know that there is a good horizon. you know, it's the answer to any question of business, Simon. It, it all depends, right? I worked with a, a forestry company in California, and the state made them have a 100-year projection of, you know, what trees they were gonna plant.

You know, so that was the environment that required that. but I, think, what's happened since COVID is whatever planning horizon companies had, it's shorter than it used to be. If it used to be five, now it's three. I, I would also make a distinction between strategic planning, where maybe you're going three years out, and operational planning, where you're going one year out.

So what a lot of, what happens in a lot of companies is they say they're doing strategic planning, but they're really doing operational planning. So I don't have a, I don't have a magic bullet answer for you, but I would say, the comfort level with most of the clients we're working with today is more like three years

[00:20:15] Simon Vetter: It also depends on, how capital intense the, the business is and, and how much you need to plan ahead in terms of, your capital in- investments. Yeah

[00:20:24] Marc Emmer: That, that's right. But, so I think as a best practice, what you do is you plan out your, goals and your assumptions and your capital, deployment and all that maybe three years. And then the goals and objectives that govern the in- the init- internal initiatives, they're usually out more like one year.

So there is a way you can split the difference on that

[00:20:45] Simon Vetter: When we talk about the vision, it's part of the strategy. The vision is more, the direction the organization is going. Where are we going in a picture form? And strategy is much more cognitive to really understand how do we get there, and what are different steps, and how do we distinguish ourselves from the competition?

How do you incorporate vision into strategic planning?

[00:21:11] Marc Emmer: It's a very esoteric question, and again, I don't think that you should use any canned meth- methodology or anything that some consultant tells you you have to do, 'cause there are even arguments on if mission is a subset of vision or vision is a subset of mission, and which do you start with.

but I think of vision as a destination. It, it's, it's a place where we're trying to get to, and I think if you can be specific with that, and it might even get as specific as the types of customers you wanna serve or what kinds of products and how much of it, and use that more as an internal North Star, I think that's valuable for most people.

and, you know, nowhere is it written that you have to share that with the outside world. Where usually the mission, you're gonna share that with the outside world. so depending on your interpretation, that's the way I would use it as a North Star that then informs on the strategy and the tactics that kinda live beneath it

[00:22:13] Simon Vetter: Yeah. you mentioned some of the typical strategy discussions is understanding the marketplace, the customer needs, that's the external. Then internal, the capabilities. You also mentioned the culture. What are some other aspects that are tied to that discussion?

[00:22:32] Marc Emmer: I might not answer it as other, but let me frame it a little better. When I walk into a new client who's been, say, self-facilitating strategy, almost always there is a bias towards internal process. And I think what happens is companies really struggle with market research, and their answer is, "Well, I don't know what my market share is."

So what happens is they don't even try.

[00:22:56] Simon Vetter: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:56] Marc Emmer: So I might answer it as there's an imbalance of internal and external, and there needs to be more focus on external

[00:23:06] Simon Vetter: And what are some of the external... So you look at the market, the market segments, you look the customer needs. What other external factors you, you research?

[00:23:17] Marc Emmer: one you didn't mention would be customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. I'm always interested in knowing that. You know, I might wanna know, you know, if you're in the type of business where you're doing more marketing, you wanna study all the kinda conversion stats, right? Like the, the leads, the conversion, the lifetime value, all of those things.

clients have more information than they think they have. it's just that nobody is challenging them to look at the data, whether it be internal or external. But I think the kinda components you just mentioned are the primary ones. It's understanding, it- most companies serve, say, four or five disparate markets.

It's understanding those markets, and it's understanding competition when those in, those markets, and their value proposition in each market as it relates to the competition there. 'Cause I think this is another, I'd say fatal flaw in a lot of strategies, is companies think they have a value proposition, but the reality is you may have a slightly different value proposition based on every marketplace you serve

[00:24:21] Simon Vetter: That's interesting. So how do you distinguish that? So you have a, a company value pos- position, but you also tailor it to different segments. Do you have an example how you might apply here from one of your industries that you serve?

[00:24:38] Marc Emmer: Let me answer it this way. I think as companies are evaluating which segments they wanna participate in, they need to find common core competencies that they can replicate in multiple, like, market verticals or market segments. but in each one, you could have different competitors that may have different capabilities.

Maybe, say for example, if it were in a manufacturing environment and, you know, everybody wants kinda just-in-time kinda delivery, if you're operating a manufacturing plant in, you know, Florida and you have another in Kentucky, and your competitors are in Texas, then, you know, you have an advantage in terms of freight and just-in-time.

So how you, for those customers in that part of the country. So you might approach them differently, where if it were a customer in California, you know, you might have to think about it differently. Maybe we need forward distribution. Maybe we need, you know, to manage our sales differently. Maybe we need to, to create a different promise for customers in that part of the country.

So, there's a lot of variables there that'd be hard for me to answer

[00:25:49] Simon Vetter: Yeah.

[00:25:50] Marc Emmer: few minutes. Yeah.

[00:25:51] Simon Vetter: you have a, an advisory consulting company. How do you apply own process to your own company?

[00:25:58] Marc Emmer: we're always reinventing here. You know, and I would say that, you know, some of your earlier questions are really, pertinent for us right now because I mentioned it earlier, I think the biggest problem with strategy today, it's not data, it's not people, it's any of that, it's just getting people to focus. I think it's getting very, very difficult to get people to focus on anything ' cause our attention span has become so short. So our offerings have to be, very nimble, very adaptable. Sometimes we have to chunk them down so people can manage, one thing at a time. And, you know, there's been a lot of peaks and valleys over the last number of months with the war and so on as people have been freezing in place.

So, I think today, whenever you're in front of a customer or client in almost any industry, you need to be able to communicate a level of certainty and comfort, that you can help, get them to wherever they're trying to go. So I would say we're applying deep thought in our own environment by trying to make our offering more, accessible and agile

[00:27:07] Simon Vetter: So I'm, in the leadership development field, and I remember 15, 20 years ago, companies, they do like four or five-day leadership programs. Nobody does that anymore. Maybe now maximum it's two days, maybe one day, or people do half-day leadership sessions. how long are your sessions? in average, half day, one day, two days?

[00:27:33] Marc Emmer: Yeah. Our strategy sessions are usually two days with a mid-market company. Maybe with a smaller company, it's more a day and a half. But the way we organize our meetings is the front half or two-thirds is just absorbing information. We are understanding the canvas we have. and then the last quarter or a third is figuring what we're gonna do about it.

So you really need to have, time to do both of those things well. In my experience, you know, a half day or a day isn't enough. maybe if you do more pre-work, maybe it's possible to shave the time. But yeah, I would say large public companies, their strategy offsite might be five days long.

It is exhausting. Even two days is exhausting. so I would advise, advise against anything that long, but, that has certainly been, the case in the past

[00:28:22] Simon Vetter: As you said, preparation is key, and you also have to have access to really good quality data. How do you help companies distinguish what data is really important and what data is less important? Because now companies have access to so much data. How do you help to distinguish

[00:28:40] Marc Emmer: well, that's a little bit of a loaded question. I, again, it all depends, but the type of information we're usu- you know, we've talked a lot about the external information. You know, the internal information, you know, we're gonna be re-reviewing the financial statements and trying to understand the financial health.

one thing we're always doing is financial projections, and like an example would be, you know, not only focus on the revenue and the gross margin growth, but I wanna know what SG&A is gonna look like for the next five years because those are a lot of the non-capital investments we're gonna be able to make in terms of what kind of people we're gonna be able to hire and that kind of thing.

I'm always looking at the concentration, whether it be sector concentration risk or customer sector concentration risk. So that's as simple as pulling an internal report and seeing, you know, how many customers we have and what percentage of our volume is that. Sometimes we do a matrix and we say, "Show me your product categories on one axis and show me your top customers on another, and all of our, all your top customers participating in all your product categories."

it might be doing a SKU rationalization to see if a company is carrying too many products, or maybe they need to segment their offering into A products, B products, and C products so they're always in stock on their A products. So, you know, it, it really does depend on the nature of the industry, but it's also just asking the right questions and challenging the client to convert data into information, which is, you know, two different things.

And when... So what I, what I find is very often clients are data-rich and information-poor. So it's really doing a dance to demand of the client that they're thinking of things in, in that way

[00:30:28] Simon Vetter: Yeah. When the session is done, you made a decision, you have a clear plan. How do you disseminate that strategy throughout the different layers of the organization? How do you ensure that the employees understand the strategy related to their responsibility?

[00:30:50] Marc Emmer: well again, in a distributed workforce, I think things have changed in this way, and it has to be more and more often. but I think it starts with, and depending on the size of the company, some companies it's an all hands, some companies its CEO is gonna record a video, or sometimes the management team or the department heads will do it at the department level.

sometimes it's done in one-to-ones. But I think it's taking whatever your strategy documentation is and converting it into something pretty visual and easy to understand, and going layer by layer, manager by manager and team by team and saying, "This is the corporate strategy and this is how your team can contribute."

and then I think I mentioned this earlier, but I think getting to a point where the strategy then informs on the KPIs, performance management system, and incentive plans is how you tie the daily activity of each employee back up to your corporate strategy. So I think going through that whole cycle is very, very important, but that starts by sharing the information.

And, you know, honestly, a, a big hurdle is there are still a lot of private companies who are very, very, like a secret society.

You know, they don't wanna share any information. You know, personally, I think that that's a mistake. going back to The Great Game of Business or, you know, I, I'm, I'm never, I'm never gonna go to an entrepreneur and say, "You need to open your books."

But I think having a form of being, more open than closed helps you run a business better because your mid-management understands the sausage making, right? And if you're holding on too tight to all of the information, they just won't perform as well. So every business owner's gotta make that decision.

but I think it's just, sharing as much information as you're comfortable with

[00:32:42] Simon Vetter: overall in terms of strategy, do you have any, high level advice, one or two things? Let's say if you have a CEO and say, "Hey, I wanna start strategy." How would you get started and what would be the one or two things you would advise to ensure this process is gonna be successful

[00:32:59] Marc Emmer: Come up with a framework. Either create one on your own or hire a firm to help you. If you do hire a firm though, hire a firm that specializes in strategic planning. Don't just get a facilitator who can run a meeting for you. But I think it's, you know, you create a corporate calendar for the year up front with your trade shows and your holidays, and then you thoughtfully think of, work backwards from, "Okay, my, my CFO wants, his budget done in Thanksgiving, so we're gonna do our strategy work in August, and we're gonna do our operational planning in September."

And spend two months in advance of that strategy session gathering pertinent information, internal and external, and challenge your teams to come fully prepared for an off-site where they're preparing information for the team to evaluate. And then come out of it with, you know, actionable goals, objectives, project plans, and KPIs, and then monitor your progress during the course of the year.

It, it's not about the research, it's not about the meeting, it's about having a culture where you've embedded strategy in your corporate DNA and you're able to track during the course of the year

[00:34:12] Simon Vetter: Yeah. It's a very cognitive process, very analytical process, and, how do you get, people to be excited about strategy?

[00:34:20] Marc Emmer: Well, well, you're not wrong. I, I'd say the way we do it is probably a fairly cognitive process, but in doing so, it's also very unifying, right? When, like I don't, I don't buy in real well when the CEO is like creating the deck and presenting it to the team. It should be the team creating the strategy together.

And when a team, does strategy work together and there's buy-in, what happens is maybe the CFO stops questioning the motives of the sales team, and maybe the sales and marketing team are working better in concert 'cause we've agreed on who the targets are. And maybe the investors are willing to fork over a few more dollars because, they see how this innovation will help the company move forward.

And maybe the operations team is not in combat with the sales team over which things should ship first this week because they have a unifying vision. So y- you're not wrong that it's cognitive, but it also can be quite unifying if you bring the team along for the ride

[00:35:22] Simon Vetter: Strategy helps with alignment, alignment between different departments, between different parts of the business. And alignment is kind of soft. What does good alignment look like inside an organization?

[00:35:35] Marc Emmer: I think my last answer hopefully addressed that. But I, I would say that, I think what it looks like is when people feel the goals are common goals, so we don't have so many silos and people, like, looking out for themselves.

say you have a receivables problem. You know, is that the accounting team's problem or is that the sales team problem?

I would say it's sales and accounting and executive leadership team's problem, right? So, that might not be that strategic unless, you know, managing your cash operating cycle was a key initiative or something, right? But the point is that when you start with strategy as a kinda unifying mechanism, maybe you bring people together in a way that they're thinking less about themselves and they're thinking more about the team because there's not align- only alignment on the corporate strategy, but there's alignment on the goals.

And like I said, I, I, you know, I don't wanna overplay this card, but even down to the incentive level, everybody's swimming in the same direction because, you know, we're all win it, in it to win it

[00:36:43] Simon Vetter: Before we finish, is there anything, you like to leave the listener that, is important for them about strategy?

[00:36:52] Marc Emmer: probably more to summarize something that we already discussed, that do not let time and uncertainty be an excuse.

be thoughtful about creating a calendar, and a framework. Set expectations with your team that we're gonna do this together and we're gonna invest the time, and if you get stuck in your day-to-day work, then maybe you shouldn't have a seat at the table.

and then once you come out of your strategy session, you know, communicate very clearly and, help each employee see how their role contributes to the greater good. And w- if you can do those things regularly every year, you will be a better company

[00:37:35] Simon Vetter: Wonderful. It sounds easy, but when you really have to do the work, it's much more challenging to do the work. And I think having someone facilitating and, and being there to lead the process is very helpful. Yeah. Excellent

[00:37:50] Marc Emmer: We think so too. Thank you for that

[00:37:52] Simon Vetter: I can definitely see the value you bring to organizations because it's a complex process and...

So thank you very much, Mark. This has been very interesting, very insightful. where can we find you?

[00:38:05] Marc Emmer: Well, you can find me on LinkedIn, Loo- YouTube, and our website is optimizeinc.net. Optimizeinc.net

[00:38:14] Simon Vetter: Wonderful. Mark, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for our time today

[00:38:18] Marc Emmer: Thank you. It was a pleasure. Be well